Commentary

Letter to the editor

Thursday, 15 July 2010 17:34

I am writing about the article in the June 28-July 4th edition entitled Bicycle Apartheid Nice Ride (if you can get it).

First of all the title Bicycle Apartheid is a very strong title/statement. Perhaps Insight News wanted to get readers’ attention. In the article you state that the bicycles are available in Downtown and Uptown. We know people of color live in those communities and have easier access to use the bikes in the Nice Ride Program.

What about "buying Black"?

Tuesday, 13 July 2010 15:46
William Reed

In The Souls of Black Folk W.E.B. DuBois’ vision was that by incorporating into White industry Negroes could build an economic foun¬dation by becoming skilled workers through industrial educa¬tion and from their ranks small capitalists could rise.

There is a movement of note to boost Black economic development. The current interest group started when one suburban, professional couple took a stand to live off Black businesses for one year. In early 2009, Maggie and John Anderson an upper-middle-class African-American couple, who live in Oak Park, Illinois, made a vow to only patronize Black-owned businesses.

Letter to the editor: Transit for livable communities

Monday, 12 July 2010 14:19

We are writing in response to your June 25 article about the launch of the Nice Ride bicycle sharing program. Bike Walk Twin Cities, a program of Transit for Livable Communities, administers the Minneapolis location of a federal non-motorized transportation pilot program to increase bicycling and walking and decrease driving. One of our strategic funding goals is to address cultural and economic gaps and improve access for underserved communities. We will continue to work with stakeholders and partners—including Nice Ride—to expand the network for bicycling, walking, and access to transit for a wide variety of users.

Will Dudus sing?

Monday, 12 July 2010 14:07
William Reed

Christopher “Dudus” Coke is a man worth watching. Coke is a Kingston, Jamaica resident who caused a state of emergency and got the leader of the country’s ruling party to put his political career and reputation on the line to keep him out of American courts. The arrest of Christopher Coke was an urban spectacle, and his trial has the potential to revel a lot about American and Jamaican officials’ drug trade dealings. If Coke sings much may be told about Jamaican and American officials’ involvement in illegal activities from the Caribbean to North America to England.

The case is an example of the “strong arm” of the United States government and its practices in the drug trade. The US justice department had the alleged leader of the notorious Shower Posse gang on a "world's most dangerous" list, while a former Jamaican national security minister describes him as “probably the country’s most powerful man”. The role and record of “Dudus” is result of alliances between U.S. imperialism and the predominately-Black island’s governing bourgeoisie. Coke gained his mythical status as a linkage between Jamaica’s working class elements and the political ruling class elite that comprises the: Jamaica Labor Party (JLP) and the People's National Party (PNP).

American gun rights

Friday, 09 July 2010 15:20
Judge Greg Mathis

The U.S. Supreme Court recently ruled that state and local governments can no longer restrict an individual’s right to own a firearm. However, the Court’s decision and supporting arguments left room for lawmakers to impose some restrictions on ownership and prevent easy access to guns while still protecting this basic right. In handing down its decision, the Court focused its attention on a case that challenged a 28-year-old Chicago ban on handguns. The decision is an extension of the Court’s 2008 ruling that the Second Amendment was not intended just for militias and did, in fact, extend to individuals.

While the ruling doesn’t guarantee cities will modify their gun ban laws, it does open the door for residents to legally challenge those laws and win. Officials in these cities, where there are high rates of gun crime, are upset and fear the Court’s decision will interfere with their ability to craft gun laws that reduce crime. That fear, however, may be unfounded. The Court made certain to note that the right to own a firearm is not the same as the right to possess and carry a firearm in any manner for whatever purpose. To that end, the Court does support restricting firearm ownership for felons and the mentally ill and encourages state and local efforts to close loopholes that allow individuals to purchase guns without a background check.

Federal immigration law needed

The federal government has moved forward with plans to sue the state of Arizona in an attempt to shut down its new immigration law, scheduled to go into effect on July 29.

The law, considered the country’s toughest immigration laws, gives police the right to detain immigrants if there is a reasonable suspicion that they are in the country illegally. Immigrants unable to produce documentation to show they are in the country legitimately will be arrested. The Justice Department has asked for an injunction to prevent the Arizona law from taking effect as planned; decisions on that request are expected in the next few weeks.

Independence and the right to private property

Thursday, 08 July 2010 14:50
Joseph C. Phillips

The right to private property was one of the central issues involved in the American Revolution. The colonists’ cries of “taxation without representation” were but protests of what they saw as an unjust taking of private property.

The Declaration of Independence charges the King of England with engaging in 10 acts of abuse, of which half are offenses against private property. Most significantly, the Declaration lists the pursuit of happiness as one of man’s primary inalienable rights. The founders believed that liberty, happiness, and property were inextricably tied together.